Thursday, December 22, 2016

It’s
important to get these phrases written down, before they become obsolete.

For
a few decades now, the popularity of “spin,” with its tempting save-face
claims, has elbowed out the use of a simple, honest apology. The reasons (read:
excuses) for this are numerous and seemingly convincing:

·We
can’t afford bad publicity.

·We
need to frame this so fewer people are defamed.

·We
are a litigious society. We can’t admit this; we’ll be sued.

·We
should keep quiet or the media will drag us through the mud.

The
list goes on.

But
here’s a fact: things go wrong. Companies make blunders. People mess up. And
some of those little oops moments create big ripples. The law of unintended
consequences is constantly in effect.

So
the variable isn’t whether or not things will
go wrong. It’s how you’ll deal with it when they do.

The Oops-I-Messed-Up
Approach, Care of Seventh Generation Inc.

My
client, Seventh Generation, recently messed up—then handled it so beautifully
that I now use them as the ultimate example of how to make a mistake,
apologize, and move forward successfully.

When
I asked them for the details, I learned a lot.

The
marketplace knows that the core vision of Seventh Generation is focused on
providing environmentally sound products. What many don’t know is that their
CEO, John Replogle, and his team and board are also dedicated to authenticity
in their dealings with team members, customers, suppliers, everyone.

In
October 2012, their baby wipes were selling great, largely through Amazon’s
subscription program, which allows customers to set a schedule for
automatically replenishing their supply. It’s a win-win for consumer and company
alike—one that’s hugely dependent on customer loyalty.

At
the time, 70% of Seventh Generation’s baby wipe sales came from this program.
But that was about to change.

When
the company launched a new, improved wipe—one that looked different and cost more—they
started shipping it to subscribers, higher price and all. Just one glitch: no
one told the subscribers that. Oops.

Customers
responded fast and furiously. They called, wrote, complained on Amazon, and lit
up social media. Sales started cliff diving, eventually hitting 50% of prior
levels.

Now’s
the time for spin, right? Wrong.

When
John Moorhead, the new ecommerce brand manager, learned that the company hadn’t
communicated with customers on this matter, his first reaction was, “We need to
apologize.”

Even
though he was relatively new to the scene, Moorhead knew of the company’s
commitment to transparency and understood its importance.

The
company launched a campaign of personal notes, phone calls, and responses to feedback,
social media, and press. The message was simple: “We messed up, we’re sorry,
and we’re fixing it as fast as we can."

Within
12 months, sales had recovered, the team had learned much about how their customers
viewed wipes, and the company had institutionalized the communication fix.

In
short, from adversity and authenticity (and the corresponding apology) came
advancement.

Seventh
Generation’s commitment to authenticity is so strong that communications
manager Brandi Thomas actually has proud memories of this blunder: “As a PR
person, I don't always get to call the Wall
Street Journal to tell them I want to share one of our mistakes, so this
story is one my favorites," she told me recently.

Let’s
hear it for the power of a strong corporate vision.

The Ugly Truth about
Falsehood

Look
alert the next time one of your advisers asks, “How are we going to spin this?”

The
term “spin” comes from the practice of spinning a yarn, telling a story,
sharing fiction. In other words, something made up—false.

As
a leader, I doubt you want false. But if those excuses—ahem—“reasons” for
choosing spin still have you convinced, think about what’s ahead, namely, more
spin and less credibility for your name.

When
the spin is exposed or called into doubt, you hit a slippery slope: add new
information to assuage doubt, explain what you “technically” meant when you
first said X, trip, slip, fall.

Once
it gets messy enough, you throw your hands in the air and go for what I call a
redirected apology, which is an apology that attempts to deflect all
responsibility away from yourself, often onto the audience.

In
other words, it’s not an apology at all.

·“I’m
sorry you misinterpreted my meaning.”

·“I
apologize that my attempt to fix this backfired because of what he did.”

·“I’m
sorry that you were offended by what I said.”

Maybe
some people call that an apology. I call it a thinly veiled attempt at
scapegoating.

The
more you do this, the more calloused your audience becomes. And the more your
credibility crumbles.

The Solution & Its
Outcome

Let’s
go back to the beginning of all this. What if, at the moment you had realized you
goofed up, you had ignored those advisers and started with “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to create confusion/frustration/etc., but I made a mistake. I hope you’ll
forgive me, but forgiven or not, I’m going to see if it can be fixed. And I will
personally report back to you.”

In
those rare cases where we see leaders show honest contrition, without spin, the
story tends to die very quickly. Or, better yet, it turns positive, reflecting
on the honesty.

And
don’t forget that you can choose authenticity at anytime, even if you opted for
spin early on and are already buried in your own mess. Better late than never.

Authenticity
can be hard. Apologizing is humbling. But humility builds wisdom. That’s the
simple, honest truth. No apology necessary.

Bill
Munn is a leadership coach, speaker, former Dow 30 top executive, former
university teacher of finance and economics, and author of the new book WHY MAKE EAGLES SWIM?:Embracing Natural Strengths In Leadership
& Life. For
more information visit www.BillMunnCoaching.com.

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Ah,
the holiday season.A time to be nice to
your fellow humans, a time to reflect on the accomplishments of the past year,
and to look forward to the excitement that the New Year brings.Or, from a more Scrooge-like perspective, a
time when team members slack off, the company throws expensive parties where
certain people drink too much and do things everyone wants to forget, team
members gather to exchange awkward Secret Santa gifts that no one wants, and
very little productive activity takes place.

Love
it or hate it, it’s not a season we can afford to ignore.Extending from American Thanksgiving until
the hangover subsides around January 3, we’re talking about a little more than
6 weeks or a little more than 10% of the working year.Not only is it a lot of time, it comes with
certain expectations about being an occasion for organizations to show appreciation
to their people.The reaction of many
organizations is to follow the traditional checklist of office parties, gift
giving, and expecting that productivity will be low, all the while resenting
the process and expense, and anxiously awaiting the arrival of the New Year.

But
does it have to be that way?As with
most things in life, the answer is: of course not.But also as with most things in life, taking
a step back to develop a broader perspective on the situation is required; no
improvement is possible without change, and positive change is rarely
accomplished without understanding the bigger picture.And in the case of the holidays, a missing
part of that bigger picture is frequently an understanding of what team members
actually want.Traditional ‘rewards’ such as office parties
are often viewed as obligations (and therefore not very motivating) by staff,
not just by management.

To
put some perspective on motivation during the holidays, think about these 4 things:

1. The common perception of the
December holiday period is that it is a time to rest, recharge, and to plan for
the upcoming year.Although this may not apply to your entire
team, many great team members work hard throughout the year with the
expectation that they will get a bit of downtime during the holiday
period.Any attempt to take that away by
expecting productivity to be maintained at the level you might see in March or
October, is unlikely to be met, and is likely to create resentment among the
team.So be reasonable in setting
expectations, which means accepting that while productivity may be lower, this
is a healthy part of the work cycle.

2. Don’t assume you know how the
team wants to mark the occasion.Particularly in large offices, parties with
spouses that total several hundred attendees mean that there is little time for
the team to connect, lots of time for awkward socializing with people you only
meet once a year and whose names you can’t remember, and ultimately an
experience that is more punishing than rewarding.Throw in the opportunity for people to do
inappropriate things when nerves combine with alcohol, and you have a recipe
that you don’t want to make into an actual dish.

Instead
of assuming, talk to your team about how they would like to celebrate, and be
prepared to go against tradition.Some
groups like to take every Friday in December to go for drinks after work.Some teams want to play paintball.And yes, some teams will want to do a more
traditional holiday party.There is no
right or wrong here; only right or wrong for your team.And the only way to know is to engage the
team in the discussion.

3. Set clear expectations for
behaviour and productivity during the holidays.Nothing is
worse than pretending it’s business as usual if in fact times are slower, and
people have to make an effort to appear busy.Instead, engage the team in planning in the November time frame, work
with them to set some quantifiable goals for what needs to be accomplished over
the holidays, goals that reflect a realistic level of effort, and talk with
each team member about what that means they’ll be doing during that time
frame.Than manage the group to those
expectations.Accomplishing these
realistic goals becomes a motivator for the team, and leads to a sense of
satisfaction, rather than disappointment at what didn’t happen.

4. Now is NOT the time to tolerate
behaviour that wouldn’t normally be acceptable.There is never
a time for that, and we can’t make an exception during the holidays without
creating issues.Although productivity
expectations may be lower during this period, failing to deliver on what was
agreed to is never acceptable. Similarly, allowing people (often with the help
of alcohol) to start acting like your gropey Uncle Greg gets at weddings should
not be tolerated.Hold your team to the
same standard of behaviour and respect as the rest of the year.

Remember:
keeping a team engaged and motivated is a long-term process, not something to
think about once a year.In the same way
we shouldn’t wait for the holidays to treat our fellow human beings with
respect and kindness, we can’t think about our motivation and engagement
strategy as existing only in a particular time frame.Although the elements may be different
depending on the circumstances the calendar brings, it needs to be a coherent
strategy that is implemented throughout the year.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Today’s winning leader is not just here to weather the
storm; they are here to completely change the game.

To survive and prosper in 2017,
companies must adopt a way of managing that is based on their capacity to learn
and change—consciously, continuously, and quickly.

Anticipating
and preparing for change is the essence of competitive advantage. The leaders
who dominate in this new era will not only understand the changes affecting
them, but they will seize them, master them, and use them to their advantage to
achieve ever-higher performance.

While every leader plans and communicates their strategy before
the competition begins, once in the race, it’s often necessary to make split-second
decisions to redirect efforts. If you don’t notice the shifts in the wind and
adjust quickly, you may lose your strategic options. Since opportunities come
and go rapidly, you can quickly become a victim of changing circumstances.

Business flows in cycles: bulls follow bears; bears chase
bulls. There is opportunity to enhance one’s competitive position in every
phase of those cycles. Successful companies and leaders constantly search for
market opportunities/threats and take quick, creative action. You can feel the
organizational pulse rate by the speed with which they commit to action,
allocating and reallocating resources (time, talent, and capital) to pursue
opportunities. Decisions are made quickly, and

vision is translated into action. People are recognized and
rewarded for these practices.

However, many companies don’t seize opportunities prompted
by change because they cannot see
opportunities prompted by change. They are so busy making the most of
yesterday’s opportunities, they cannot see today’s or create tomorrow’s. What
worked in the past no longer guarantees success in the present, let alone the
future.

New leadership is needed—leadership that goes against the
grain, challenges conventional wisdom, and pushes the status quo. Developing
the mindset and ability to embrace change is a considerable challenge.
World-class competitors can do it. They know that change is accelerating and
that in a time of constant change, the ability to learn and change faster than
their competitors is a competitive advantage.

Many excellent companies fall from grace because business conditions
shift and they fail to adapt. With fluctuating markets, proliferating
technologies, and changing political frontiers, the challenge is no longer to
manage growth. Now managers must cope with sudden shifts in the rules of the
game. Are you ready? How will you handle sudden and radical changes in business
conditions?

Many companies are still
in survival mode after the 2008 recession. They are trying to survive, not
grow. The same is true of some executives. Trying not to lose is far different
than trying to win.

It’s time to lean
forward and position yourself and your company for greatness and achieve
world-class performance. Regain your Olympic-like competitive edge, rekindle
your desire to compete and win. Place a premium on exemplary performance in all
dimensions: quality, productivity, service, and value. Growth and innovation
are not only possible but necessary during dark times. Here’s a
snapshot of the difference:

TRYING NOT TO
LOSE
TRYING TO WIN

Hold
Build

Survive Thrive

Divest Invest

Pause Pounce

Scarcity Abundance

Wait Anticipate

Reduce cost Add Value

Delay Accelerate

Consent Invent

Imitate
Innovate

Realistic goals Stretch goals

Today’s winning leader
is not just here to weather the storm; they are here to completely change the
game. World-class competition is the ultimate proving ground of people, teams,
and organizations. Just as we saw in this summer’s Olympics, competition brings
together exquisitely prepared men and women in a pressure-cooker
atmosphere—each of them vying for victory. The line between success and failure
is often razor thin…no more than a hundredth of a second or a few millimeters.
The winners will be those who best prepare both physically and mentally and
give the extra effort that leads to victory.

About the Author:

Michael Winston had a career of distinction in executive
positions for over three decades in five Fortune 100 companies across three
industries. He served in executive positions for Motorola, Merrill Lynch,
McDonnell Douglas, Lockheed and Countrywide. As global head of leadership and
organization strategy, he worked closely with C-Suite Officers to develop
business models, craft strategies and structure, create cultures and develop
leaders.

As Enterprise Chief Leadership
Officer for Countrywide Financial, Winston rebuilt the strategy, leadership and
culture and tried to stop the fraud, corruption and deception he observed. His
warnings were dismissed and ignored. Winston’s experiences in confronting
Countrywide executives about fraud, market manipulation and insider-trading are
highlighted in numerous media reports including this New
York Times feature. He is a
founding member of the Bank Whistleblowers United, and holds a Ph.D. from the
University of Illinois, a Master’s Degree from the University of Notre Dame and
attended executive programs at Stanford University and the University of
Pennsylvania's Wharton School.

For
those in a leadership role, the responsibility to lead and direct employees
falls to you. Let’s assume that your employees respect you, like you and feel that
you’re leading them down a good path. You work hard and your workplace runs
smoothly.

But what
if you could work a little less hard, positively change the way you lead and do
it all by simply asking a few more questions and talking a little less — by
creating a new habit?

It’s
easy to cast this idea aside. After all, you’re an established leader in your
industry, so you must be doing something right. Change is hard, and creating a
new habit doesn’t happen overnight.

For my
book The Coaching Habit, I
studied the neuroscience of habits and engagement and then, based on my
research, created seven simple coaching questions to make it possible to coach in
10 minutes or less. The point of it all is to help busy managers learn how to make
coaching an everyday habit and become better leaders.

It’s
simple, really. To be an effective coach, stay quiet a little longer, offer a
little less advice and ask the seven essential questions.

Unfortunately,
just because the idea is simple doesn’t mean it’s easy to implement.

Change Is Hard

As you
likely know, changing a behavior can be difficult.

According
to a Duke University study, at least 45% of our waking behavior is habitual.
Have you ever arrived home from work only to realize you don’t really remember
how you got there? You know you drove, but you can’t recall details of the commute.
That’s a perfect example of habitual behavior.

We are
creatures of habit, so it’s no surprise that you may be less than excited to
attempt to change your behavior and create a new habit. But hear me out.­­­

How to Build a New Habit

First
let’s look at how to build an effective new habit.
You need five components: a reason, a trigger, a micro-habit, effective
practice, and a plan.

Let’s
assume your reason to change is that you
want to better coach your employees. The trigger
is one particular employee who often looks for your insight on any given issue
at the weekly meeting. This typically triggers your usual behavior of offering
advice — instead of actually coaching.

Since
your end goal is to do a better job of coaching, think about that routine response
and then come up with one small step that, if you took it, would help you move toward
your goal. For instance, you might vow that the next time the employee looks to
you for guidance at the meeting, instead of jumping in with advice, you’ll ask,
“What ideas do you have that might work?” This small change in your behavior
will go a long way if you make it a micro-habit
and add to it.

Once
you’ve come up with your micro-habit, you just need to put it to effective practice. It may sound easy to
sit back and ask questions instead of offering advice but, believe me, it can
be hard to tame our advice monsters, and you’ll need to practice this as often
as you can.

And
finally, make a plan for how to get
back on track should you fall off it. (You might not figure out the plan until
you do get off track, and that’s okay.) You may miss a coaching opportunity
here and there, but you needn’t give up. The more often you ask questions, the
easier it becomes to do so.

All
this is fine and dandy if you’re committed to implementing a new coaching
habit, but you may still be wondering . . .

If Your Familiar and Efficient Ways Are Working, Why
Change Them?

There
is a difference between efficient and effective. If you’re still not convinced
of the payoff your new coaching habit will have, think less about how your
habit will affect you and more about how it will positively affect others. Your
new habit will do wonders for the people around you, and the sooner you
visualize that, the more likely you are to commit to the change. (Assuming, of
course, that you like the people around you!)

How Will My
Habit Help Others?

It
turns out that one of the best ways to help people learn is by asking them
questions. If I ask you a question and you are forced to come up with the
answer, you’re more likely to remember what you learned through the experience than
if I were to just tell you the answer — because you’re forced to create your
own connections and put in effort to find the answer.

By
asking your employee questions instead of offering advice, you do just that — force
them to come up with options and ideas, which they are more likely to learn
from than if you were to just tell them what to do.

Plus,
by asking questions, you get to the heart of whatever issue your employee is
facing — sometimes it’s not the surface issue that’s really affecting them, and
you won’t realize this until you’ve delved a little deeper.

Hopefully
by now you’re seeing the benefit your new habit will have on others, but here’s
a little extra incentive: Not only will your employees learn and develop thanks
to your new habit, but you’ll benefit too. You won’t have to jump in with all
the answers and take on more. In fact, you’ll get to do less work while having
more impact.

About Michael Bungay Stanier

Author of The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier is Senior Partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps
organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. It is best known for its
coaching programs, which give busy managers practical tools to coach in 10
minutes or less.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

I’ve always
been a fan of adventure stories, and some of the most engaging of these are
about great mountaineers and the triumphs and tragedies they have
experienced. Business leaders, too, revel in inspiring stories of
overcoming adversity, and the metaphor of striving to reach a distant peak,
with all its challenges and rewards, works beautifully in the workplace.
As Ed Bernbaum, a mountaineer and Senior Fellow at the Mountain Institute
writes, “Just as Everest stretches people to do more than they thought they
could, so companies want to stretch their employees to reach the loftiest
goals, to be number one in the field, to provide the best product or service in
the industry group.”

But in my view, rather than the extreme mountaineer, it’s the mountain guide we
can learn the most from. Perhaps that’s because the thought of guiding others
to reach their own summits at work is something we can all relate to -- and
wish for.

Over the past decade, I organized over twenty, guide-led expeditions designed
to build leadership and teamwork skills for Wharton Business School
students. These ventures took place on high peaks and trails around the
world, including remote locations in North America, Patagonia, and
Iceland. Although the expeditions were mentally and physically
challenging, each allowed relatively inexperienced travelers to participate.
What the guides taught us about leading is now being put into practice by
participants working in top organizations around the world.

Here’s what I found -- guides display six important leadership strengths that
work as well in business as they do in the mountains:

1. Guides demonstrate social
Intelligence, the ability to build and maintain positive relationships.
Guides quickly establish personal relationships that don’t fracture easily
under pressure. Christian Hoogerheyde, a project manager at Socrata, a
Seattle-based cloud software company, says his Icelandic guide’s social skills
“serve as a lesson to me every time I try to establish a new client’s trust.”

2. Guides are adaptable, and expertly
change their leadership style as conditions on the mountainchange. One guide told me that he
would teach his clients in the lodge, coach clients on steep snow slopes, and guide
firmly when things got tough. Seychelle Hicks, a team manager at Silicon
Valley’s Bloomreach, says her expert guide helped her learn to navigate rough
terrain on the mountain, coaching and leading by example. The experience helped
her become more comfortable with using a variety of leadership styles at work,
and to “adapt throughout the day to our customers, resourcing demands, building
a self-directed team -- and only jumping in when needed.”

3. Guides empower others to reach their
own summits. Edmund Reese, an executive at American Express who was a
member of a climbing team, says “The leadership lessons taught by both the guides
and the mountain itself has honed my focus on embracing the front lines.
If we build leadership in others, we develop a stronger line and an overall
stronger organization.”

4. Guides are trust-builders.
On an expedition to remote Navarino Island at the very tip of South America,
one guide told me, “Modeling what trust means is key. It’s never about
talking about things. It’s about showing them.” John Sims, CFO at
Snowden Lane Partners who climbed the Grand Teton with a guide-led team, says,
“Without trust in your teammates, you will only do as much as faith in your own
limited abilities will take you.”

5. Guides are risk-aware and provide
safety in uncertain conditions. Lyndsey Bunting, now director of
financial analysis at Birchbox, left her job in investment banking to serve
with the Peace Corps in a remote area of Panama. Although she fell ill on
her first guided summit attempt, she successfully returned to lead a team to
the summit a year later. She says, “Whether it’s a skill we’ve had to
learn from a tough life, like many of the world’s poorest populations, or from mountain
climbing or other pursuits, functioning and thriving in uncertainty is something
that we’re all able to learn.”

6. Guides see the big picture.
Less-experienced climbers may be lured by a beckoning summit, often falling
victim to what’s known as “summit fever,” but the wisest guides take a more
holistic view of the endeavor. Deborah Horn, a manager at Microsoft,
found that her climb was cut short by a fierce storm. “At our night
camp,” she says, “our guide delivered the message that we would have to end our
climb. I learned that even if the summit isn’t attained, the journey is
just as valuable and rewarding as standing on the peak.”

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

“Why waste time proving
over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better?”–
Carol Dweck

Sticks
and stones may break our bones, but words can change our brain.

There
is a scene in the new movie Dr. Strange in which a character
describes how he healed an impossible injury through the strength of his own
thinking. True, that’s a Marvel Comics movie, but growing research suggests
this isn’t entirely fiction, and that it’s possible that the words we use not
only affect those around us, but also affect our mind and body.

Joe
Dispenza shattered several vertebrae after getting hit by a car while on his
bicycle. As a chiropractor, he knew that the recommended solution of fusing
vertebrae together would lead to a lifetime of limited mobility and pain.
Instead, he thought his way to healing.

Nine
months later, he was able to walk and function as well as he had before the
accident, and he credits a large amount of that recovery to the power
of his own mind.

Where
we place our attention and focus defines who we are. The words we choose to
speak, the thoughts we visit and revisit over and over in our mind reinforce
those ideas and affect the words we choose to say out loud. Those words and
ideas not only affect those around us, but they affect who we are and how we
think about the world around us.

Feelings
of unworthiness, or ineptitude, can creep into our consciousness. It’s easy to
recognize those same thoughts over and over as we repeat and again reinforce
them. Neuroplasticity is the term used to describe how the
brain continues to reinvent itself, constantly changing over time depending on
what we focus on, while older, unused pathways shrink and become abandoned, and
new ones, with repetition and focus, emerge.

Not
that long ago, many scientists believed that our brains were fixed, hard-wired,
and unchanging. Now we know instead, that what we think about actually rewires
our brain.

“Angry words send alarm
messages through the brain, and they partially shut down the logic-and-reasoning
centers located in the frontal lobes.”–
Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman

Our
brain is an artifact of our past experiences and emotions. If we do the same
routines, and spend our time with the same people, who push our same emotional
buttons, we cannot honestly expect anything to change. In order to truly change
the way we think, and the way we interact with the world, we need to exercise
new neural pathways in our brain.

To
create new neural pathways requires that we envision a new and powerful future
experience. Our minds will then begin to change, and form new neural pathways,
to align with the envisioned future. And when we practice those envisioned
outcomes regularly, our brain will begin to believe these dreams are not simply
possibilities, but destiny.

Right
now in Sao Paulo Brazil, the Walk Again project is using virtual reality therapy,
working with paraplegic patients to help build new neural pathways which can
reactivate dormant fibers in their spinal cord, and miraculously allow them to
move and feel their extremities again for the first time in years.

Eight
patients, each with a long-term spinal cord injury and no lower extremity
sensation, performed 2000 hours of virtual reality brain training. Results
varied with each patient, but for the most part they all went from a total
absence of touch sensation to some capacity to sense pain, pressure and vibration.
One patient has progressed to walking without the aid of a therapist, using
only the aid of crutches and braces.

Try
envisioning a better version of you and your world. Over time, your mind will
begin to build the language and habits which will make it destiny.

Shawn Hunter is President and
Founder of Mindscaling, a
company building online learning courses based on the work of
best-selling authors. His new book is Small Acts of Leadership: 12
Intentional Behaviors That Lead to Big Impact, (2016). Please visit www.shawnhunter.com for more
information.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

In a
twenty-year career, I had eighteen different bosses. Do that math, please. I
experienced eight acquisitions (and thus, culture) changes in that timeframe.
Cheerleading each time for the “new reality” through all the uncertainty, when
I too had fears and uncertainties, was exhausting—like lost sleep you never
catch up on.

We all know
that change is the real world of today’s work-life, but it feels personal. As I
see it, all change is personal. We want to feel safe. We want to be
happy.

“Let’s talk
about culture,” said the new VP at our first leadership meeting after
acquisition number eight.

Great, I thought. We’ll talk about people
and a positive future. Next slide please. He spent 45 minutes telling us how
things would be and how lucky the people are, including several of us in
the room, who were not laid off. Not valued and worthy. Lucky.

Energy and
effort are discretionary

I raised my
hand and said, “I’m on board with a high-performance culture. People have been
worried about the status of their jobs for months. Many of their teammates and
friends lost their jobs. They’re still anxious even though they were asked to
stay. It’s going to be hard to get them focused until we can redirect how they
think and feel. We can’t underestimate their happiness. Since we’re talking
about culture, is there something as a leadership team that we can do to
excite, reengage, and empower them? Can we do something fun?”

Silence.
Everyone looked at me like I was from another planet. Or maybe they were
speechless imagining me as a carcass being eaten for breakfast by a leopard on
the savannah? Crickets. Awkwardness. Sweaty brow. Horror. If a can of gasoline
had been within reach, I would have lit myself on fire. Of course, many
of my colleagues patted me on the back afterward extolling my bravery (albeit
risky) and truth-telling.

Who cares if
they’re happy? What does that have to do with anything? Everything. On life’s battleground of culture,
leadership influence and environment affect others’ livelihoods, family-life,
stress, and general health. Human beings live in the continuum of pain and
pleasure. Happy people perform better. Ask our friends at the Gallup
organization. Have a look at Fortune’s top companies to work for.

·
Roughly 7 out of 10 people are disengaged at work – 6 out of 10 managers are
disengaged.

·
81% of workers in the top Companies to work for rated their workplace as “Fun”

·
Fun (short-term “happiness” shocks) is best delivered in short and consistent
doses.

·
Extrinsic and intrinsic happiness are indicative of productivity.

·
Happiness at work leads to 300% more innovation, 44% higher retention, and a
37% increase in sales (references below).

I guess the VP
missed the opportunity to set the right tone for culture. Within 12 months,
there was approximately 35% turn-over including me, my team, and several other
“lucky ones.”

From the start:

·
Appreciate that people are humans first, and workers (“employees”) second –
they remember how they feel more than they remember specific projects, details,
and data.

·
Know that workplace happiness is not only “the right thing to do,” but that it
has an impact on your bottom-line.

·
Engage and connect people with more fun. Get creative. Have a little fun
yourself.

·
Who ever said work wasn’t supposed to be fun? Or that happiness isn’t a
priority?

Fun need not be
an expensive scavenger hunt in Times Square, 36 holes of golf, or a paint-ball
extravaganza in the woods. A little fun at work bonds people, enhances happiness
neurochemical release, and positively impacts your bottom line. So ask
yourself, “Are they happy?”

Fun is
underrated. Happiness is everything.

TJ Jones is
an author, speaker, coach and leadership crusader. He works with organizations,
teams, individual experienced and emerging leaders to enhance their
effectiveness and fulfillment. He is the author of the forthcoming book, “The
Caring Warrior: Awaken Your Power to Lead, Influence and Inspire,” available
November 2016.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

Most people can
handle just about any amount and type of work that comes their way. It’s not
the work that puts them over the edge – its conflict with coworkers!

Conflict in the
workplace – or anywhere - is inevitable. Conflict is part of being human. Some
people are more comfortable with it than others, and some people tend to be
“conflict carriers”.

Ultimately,
it’s part of a manager’s job to deal with workplace conflict head-on. Ignoring
it will only make matters worse, and will eventually impact team productivity,
results, employee satisfaction, and the manager’s reputation.

Here are some
ways to manage workplace conflict, so that little problems don’t fester into
BIG problems:

1. Make the ability to collaborate an expectation. Establishing expectations start with
the hiring process. Are you looking to hire lone wolfs, or employees that can
collaborate with others? If it’s the latter, than you need to ask questions
that uncover how well the candidate gets along with their co-workers. Look for
red flag answers like, “Well, I have very
highstandards, and sometimes get
frustrated with others if they don’t meet those standards”. Which often
translates to: “I thought my co-workers
were idiots and we fought like cats and dogs.”

Make the
ability to collaborate a job expectation for all employees, reward it, and make
it a condition for advancement.

2. Recognize the difference between
healthy and destructive conflict.
Healthy conflict is making it OK to disagree, to debate the issue, challenge
the process, and speak up. Destructive conflict is when it gets personal, gets
in the way of working effectively, and has a negative impact on productivity,
innovation, and ultimately, results.

3. Don’t ignore it – look for little signs that can turn
into big problems. A manager needs to be having regular one-on-ones with all
direct reports, as well as regular team meetings. These are the opportunities
to ask questions, listen, and watch for subtle clues of unhealthy conflict.
Most employees won’t want to tattle of their co-workers or be seen as a
complainer – but you might pick up that they are going out of their way to work
with another employee. Point out your observation, and ask why.

4. Be a role model with your peers. Many managers don’t understand the
connection between how well they work with and talk about their fellow
managers, and how well their own employees work together. Employees learn more
from watching a manager’s behaviors than they do from what the manager says.

5. Learn a conflict resolution
methodology. Most
people shy away from conflict because it’s often messy and painful. If you’re
not good at something, or you don’t like it, you’ll most likely avoid it.

However, if you
learn and practice a consistent approach, you get good at it, and your world
gets better as a result of dealing with it, then you’ll be more likely to seek
out opportunities to deal with conflict.

I’d recommend
taking a course in conflict management or reading a good book, like Crucial Conversations. A good course or book will give you a
framework and set of tools, which gives you the confidence to confront conflict
in a constructive, deliberate way. You’ll also be able to coach employees how
to handle their own conflicts.

There are a lot
of different conflict resolution models, but most of them have the following 5 elements:

1. Stay calm and dealing with the
emotions first

2. State what is bothering you in a
respectful and specific way

3. Listen to the other person’s
perspective for complete understanding

4. Problem solving – look for root
causes and win-win solutions

5. Agree on actions to be taken, and
making mutual commitments

Any new skill
takes time and practice before we get comfortable with it. The important thing
is to have the right intention – which is to resolve the conflict, not to punish the other person.

6. Help your employees with their
conflicts. Once you’ve
learned how to handle your own conflicts, you can help your employees deal with
their conflicts. There are two ways to do this – teach them a methodology (or
have them learn the same way you did) so that they can handle on their own. In
fact, some managers and experts say this is the only approach a manager should
take – that is, they should never get
involved in a conflict between two of their employees. While I can see the
value of encouraging employees to handle their own conflicts without having to
“run to Dad or Mom”, I still think are times when a manager needs to step in.

However – it’s
important that the manager doesn’t get caught in the middle by having
individual conversations with each employee and trying to mediate. Instead, the
manager should sit down with both employees and coach the employees through the
conflict resolution process.

Learn to
proactively eliminate destructive conflict and deal with it before it gets out
of control and everyone will be able to focus on their work, and not get caught
up in unproductive and stressful workplace drama.